Noriega still casts long shadow over Panama

By Staff
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MIAMI, Aug 5 (Reuters) Who's afraid of former Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega? The answer, according to his longtime lawyer Frank Rubino, is a lot of people in the country Noriega ruled almost single-handedly before the US military invasion that led to his removal in January 1990.

Noriega, who has served nearly 18 years in a federal prison in Florida, is due for release on Sept. 9.

He wants to go home again even though he faces convictions in Panama for crimes that include murder and the beheading of a prominent opponent in 1985.

But the United States wants him sent to France, where he has been convicted of money laundering, and Noriega, 72, could serve another 10 years in a foreign prison before he ever returns to Panama.

The issue could go all the way to the US Supreme Court before it is resolved later this year, according to Rubino. The first step will be a hearing before US District Court Judge William Hoeveler in Miami on Aug. 13.

The same judge presided over Noriega's trial on US drug trafficking, racketeering and conspiracy charges in 1992 and was instrumental in winning ''prisoner of war'' status for a man who once defied the United States while heaping scorn on US President George HW Bush.

Before seizing dictatorial powers, Noriega served as intelligence chief under late military leader Gen. Omar Torrijos, the father of Panama's current president. He was also the undisputed boss of the same Democratic Revolutionary Party that rules Panama today.

He has said little during his long time behind bars. But many Panananians, enjoying a new sense of wealth amid their country's current real estate boom and rapid economic expansion, may feel threatened by all he knows about Panama's elite and notoriously corrupt political class.

''They're terrified he'll come home,'' Rubino told Reuters in an interview last week.

''He knows where all the skeletons are buried,'' he added.

''Maybe they're afraid that when he goes back he'll unearth all those things.'' As a prisoner of war, Rubino insists that the Geneva Conventions require that Noriega be returned home after completing his sentence in Florida.

'DOSSIERS ON EVERYBODY' But Panama has raised no strong objections to Noriega's extradition to France, fueling suspicions among Rubino and others that a secret deal has been made to prevent Noriega's return.

''He had dossiers on everybody,'' said Larry Birns, who heads the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, a Washington-based think tank.

''Noriega is capable of warbling some tunes that would be very embarrassing to the political establishment in Panama,'' he said. ''There are a lot of people who would like to keep him out of Panama including the U.S. government and certainly the Panamanian government.'' Panamanian officials have insisted there is no backroom deal with France or the United States to keep Noriega in detention abroad. But any discomfort with his return could stem, at least in part, from a recent reform of the penal code in Panama that allows prisoners aged 70 or older to serve their terms under house arrest instead of jail.

According to Julio Berrios, one of Noriega's two Panama-based attorneys, a 12-year statute of limitations could also see the crimes for which Noriega was convicted in absentia tossed out of court without any penalty after he returns home.

That, in turn, could allow Noriega to return to Panamanian politics where some say he could tap into support among his country's overwhelming majority of poor while casting himself as a long-suffering victim of Washington and ''Yanqui'' imperialism.

''There are more poor people here now than before, when we had a military government,'' said Berrios, speaking from his law office in Panama City.

''Times change and circumstances change,'' he added, while noting that he was once a vocal critic of Noriega and of military rule.

''Noriega is not the dictator now. Noriega is a prisoner of the empire.'' REUTERS RSA VC1900

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